


Ring Fence

by Huggle



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence, protective Reese, self inflicted injury, threat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt at meme of interest, that asked for Reese to be undercover when Finch is captured by the  bad guys; Reese has to torture him or appear to do so or his cover will be blown and they'll both be killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring Fence

They probably think Harold is being defiant; the way he sits bolt upright in his chair, the way he won’t turn to look at them.

But it’s John standing in front of him and even if Harold was schooling his face not to betray him, John would see right through it.

And there is absolutely nothing he can do or say right now to reassure Harold without giving them both away and starting a fire fight that none of them will probably survive.

“So he knows what we’re doing here,” Kapinsky says. “Else why’s he sniffing around? You, find out who he is, what he’s up to, then do him.”

John’s fiercely grateful they chose him because he has a chance now to come up with an exit strategy; a chance he wouldn’t have had if the boss of this gang of counterfeiters had given that responsibility to some one else.

Because John would have killed them all and likely been killed in doing so. Which would have left Harold tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse with no one knowing he was there.

They leave the room, closing the door behind them. It’s enough of an opening. John kneels down in front of Harold, puts his hands on the other man’s knees.

“Finch,” he says, calmly. 

“I understand the severity of our situation,” Finch says. “Do what you have to do, Mr. Reese.”

And just like that, he can see Harold means it – he’s willing to endure torture to help John keep his cover here. 

What he can’t see is how Harold actually thinks that he _could_. 

He straightens up, mind racing through options and discarding each. 

“This is going to look worse than it is,” he tells Finch.

Finch watches him, nonplussed, as John rolls up his left sleeve. He uses his right hand to draw the knife from the sheath on his belt. The problem (this is the only time he’s considered it as such) – the more scared Finch is, the more resilient he becomes.

“That won’t be necessary, John. I’m the one they want to bleed. In this instance, I’m afraid pain will have to suffice.”

And before John can stop him, Harold grits his teeth and drops his head sharply forward as if he’s trying to touch his chin to his chest.

His scream makes John take a step back. Harold’s neck isn’t designed to move that way any more and definitely not that fast. It can, at a push, but this is the result. 

John shakes himself out of it, sheaths the knife and has his hands in the right places on Finch’s neck and shoulder when Kapinsky comes in.

“You skip the foreplay?” he asks.

John already knows he’s going to kill this man, but he’s just decided it won’t be a quick and clean shot to the head. 

“I thought we were against the clock here.”

Kapinsky shrugs and leaves them alone.

Harold’s just bought them time John intends to put to good use. He crouches next to Finch, wishes he knew how to touch him to ease the self inflicted agony. 

“I’m going to untie you. Then you’re going to get behind the packing cases in the corner.”

Finch’s breathing comes in short sobs. “You can’t... shoot your way past eight of them. Not even you. And we’ll never find out who they’re working for.”

“Right now, Harold, I don’t really care.” He draws the knife again, slices away the ropes tying Finch to the chair and helps him to huddle down behind the only real cover the room provides. But not before he leaves Finch the knife. If he doesn’t survive the fight he’s about to start, it’s the best he can offer Harold for self defence. 

But he is scarily determined that Harold won’t have to use it.

///

The library is closest, but the care Finch needs can’t be provided there, so John drives them to the nearest safe house, a suburban residence with an SUV in the garage and an exit through the back garden that you’d have to know was there if you wanted to find it.

John sits Finch down on his bed and turns on the electric blanket. Finch’s eyes are squeezed shut, his hands clenching into fists, then relaxing, then clenching again. John sees the other man’s lips moving. He’s counting. 

“Harold?”

“A little tip one of my physiotherapists taught me. For when no amount of painkiller is enough. Count. Tell myself I can bear it until I reach twenty, then thirty then fifty. It’s self deceit, but it’s also quite effective.”

“So will these be,” Reese says. He pries open one of Harold’s fists, gets him to take the glass of water while he holds out two of his painkillers. The strong ones, the ones Harold rarely takes because they knock him out.

It’s a sign of how bad it is that Finch takes them not only without argument but gulps them down. John helps him lie back, hoping the heat will hold him until the meds take effect.

“You should have let me do it my way,” he says.

Finch stares up at him, face tight. “And reduced your efficiency by a self inflicted injury. Daubing your blood on me, even if they did fall for it, would have been a stopgap measure anyway.”

John won’t argue with him; there’s rarely a point. If he and Finch don’t agree on a course of action, John will either cede or just do what he was going to do anyway and Finch will remonstrate with him afterwards if it went well, or stay silent as he patches John up if it didn’t.

They sit in a pained silence, broken only by Harold occasionally saying a number out loud.

When his body starts to relax, unclenching inch by tender inch, John knows the painkiller is kicking in. 

“I’m going to let you sleep,” he tells him, and starts to rise.

Finch’s hand fastens around his wrist with a strength that still surprises him. It shouldn’t. Harold has held him up when he couldn’t walk, held him down when he shouldn’t. But it’s the strength that keeps him going that John values the most. 

Because it keeps him going too.

“And I’m tired of watching you hurt yourself for me, for this,” Finch says. He looks at John with wide eyes, pupils dilated into dark discs. 

“I knew what I was getting in to.”

“So did I. It doesn’t make it any easier. And you’re always so ready to do it.”

John knows he doesn’t need to explain this to Harold. It’s just the drugs talking, stripping away the fences around the things they don’t speak of even as they are tacitly acknowledged. John will always put everyone else first – the numbers, Carter, even Fusco. But always, always Finch.

When Harold wakes up and the painkillers are out of his system, they will both pretend this conversation never happened – presuming of course that Finch remembers it.

It’s for that reason that John resists when Harold puts his hand on John’s shoulder and tries to tug him forward.

“Harold,” he chides, voice low.

Finch strains up to meet him, to counter his resistance, and John lets himself be pulled down. He lets Harold kiss him, opens his mouth to let him in. 

“This is not the drugs,” Harold pants when he releases him.

“I know,” John says. The first time Harold kissed him it was over before John could reciprocate (or even had time to know that he would) and Finch left him to get stripped out of his soaking wet clothes. It hadn’t even been a number, just John’s misfortune that he ran into some drunken Wall Street types and the path by the river was icy and a shove was all it took for him to go in.

Three of them are now working at jobs much less prestigious than before. The one who actually shoved him is behind bars, his penchant for redirecting his clients’ deposits into his own funds suddenly and glaringly exposed to the relevant organisations.

John doesn’t think Harold’s aware that he knows, but again – this is something they don’t talk about.

“Get some sleep,” Finch says. He clumsily pats John’s cheek then makes a shooing gesture at him.

John leaves, quietly, but the door stays open in case Harold needs him during the night.


End file.
